Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Today was a busy day for religious liberties at the Supreme Court, one that promises busier days ahead. In particular, the Court may have finally placed the anti-Catholic 19th-century “Blaine Amendments” in many states’ constitutions on a long-overdue path to extinction.

The Court took three actions on different fronts, with surprising support from its liberal wing. In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, the justices by a 7–2 vote held that Missouri violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by refusing to provide grants for playground resurfacing to a Lutheran church’s preschool and daycare center, solely because it was a religious institution. In Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, the Court unanimously voted to temporarily reinstate portions of President Trump’s revised “travel ban” executive order, which had been almost entirely stayed nationwide by the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, pending a final hearing in October. And in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Court agreed to hear a case on whether a Christian can be forced by the state of Colorado to bake a cake for a gay wedding. In each case, the liberal position had won in the lower courts. But the justices were divided over the breadth of the ruling in Trinity Lutheran, and the other two cases will face a final decision no sooner than this fall.

Here, then, is a rundown of the day’s events. --->

Read the rest of the story HERE and follow links to related views on the SCOTUS Decisions below: